Definitive Audio Factory visit

Definitive Audio are best known, at least by me, for the fact that
they manufacture the famous Living Voice loudspeakers. A good friend
of mine has had Living Voice Avatar OBX speakers for several years now
and I've always liked them very much. They must be one of the best
sounding, more-or-less-affordable speakers I know. They have genuine
warmth and resolution, are very natural sounding, have good extension
and are conveniently high sensitivity, at about 95 dB/watt. Simply
excellent speakers, in short. But his needed a bit of servicing, so
had to be brought back to their place of birth, Definitive Audio in
Derbyshire, UK. The suggestion of Kevin Scott, Mister Definitive
Audio, was to just bring them in and 'have a cup of tea and a listen'
while he waited for the repair to be carried out. My friend thought
this was a good excuse for a little outing and, after checking with
Kevin, three of us set of for an interesting day out.

Definitive audio is not only the manufacturer of the Living Voice
loudspeakers, but also the UK importer of the famous Kondo valve amps
and dealer for brands like CEC and Pure Sound. Definitive Audio is
housed in an old cotton mill, which is a very atmospheric building.
The moment we set foot into the premises we thought we had died and
gone to heaven. There is literally high end audio everywhere you look.
Top quality valve amplifiers by the dozens, enormous horn subwoofers
everywhere and vintage audio in all corners. This is more like a high
end audio museum than a factory!

Before I continue I have to tell you how impressed all three of us
were at the level of professionalism and hospitality at Definitive
Audio. We expected that we would be there for a couple of hours, but
we arrive just before 12 and left just before 6! There was excellent
coffee and tea, sandwiches and cake, and, above all, always the
insistence of Kevin to listen to 'one more track'. And listen we did.

Kevin still develops the Living Voice Auditorium/Avatar range. These
speakers all share the same enclosure, but have more sophisticated
drivers and crossovers when you get up the range. The better models
also have extra bracing, fancy wiring, and outboard crossovers. One of
the two listening rooms at Definitive Audio had a pair of Avatar RW's
in them, but the other room seemed even more interesting. This was the
room where the latest, ultra exclusive, Living Voice Vox Olympian horn
system is being developed. These share some DNA with the famous Living
Voice Air Scout speakers, but they are smaller than the Air Scouts and
Kevin even described this as a 'compact system'. You would have to be
a complete horn speaker nutcase to call these speakers compact! I
think they are big by most standards, and extremely imposing on top of
that. It is a four way horn system, extended by enormous horn
subwoofers in this setup. The Vox Olympians are being developed
mainly for the super exclusive market of top-of-the-line yachting.
They will be available for the 'normal' high-end market too, obviously,
but many will be installed in luxury yachts that are bigger than
most peoples houses. This very exclusive market asks for extreme quality,
not only in the sound, but also in design, fit, finish and reliability.
I dare not mention the price Kevin told us, but rest assured it is a lot
more than you are thinking now. An awful lot. Kevin has spent the last 6
years, on and off, developing these speakers and they are now nearly
finished. He suggested we should have a listen to them first. What do
you think we did?

This system with the Vox Olympians must have been one of the best I
ever had the privilege to listen to. Electronics weren't shabby too,
by the way, with top of the range Kondo amplification and DAC and a
very classy CEC transport. But these monsters of speakers were the
stars of the show, no doubt about it. The level of detail and dynamics
was nothing short of breathtaking. We were completely blown away,
almost literally, as Kevin likes to turn the volume up a bit. But this
system can take it, and delivered bone shaking volume without even a
hint of compression or harshness. The fact that it could do this while
being driven by a pair of 18 watt single ended valve amps was amazing.
Of course, these speakers have a sensitivity that is around 100
dB/watt. That gets you a lot of sound from 18 watts. And it wasn't
just loud: everything in the soundstage kept its shape and sound,
whatever happened elsewhere, and things simply refused to muddle or
harden up. It was just as good at reproducing very subtle, soft
recordings as it was at massive, all-out big band pieces. Such is the
resolution and even-handedness of this system that every recording
brought us to a completely new place, each one more fascinating than
the one before. And Kevin has a few recordings lying around! The whole
back wall of the bigger listening room was completely covered in
shelves full of vinyl, and there was more in the other room. I've been
in record shops with fewer albums! CD's were less prominent, but still
numbered in the thousands. This guy doesn't only like his audio, but
is seriously into music too!

Kevin had another trick up his sleeve, one I had encountered on an audio
show once before. He is actually able to run the whole system from
batteries! Yes, you read that right. He has a set of 8 huge car batteries
in the loft above the room, and two big inverters to generate 240V from
these. Normally the system is connected to the mains via the chargers,
but it can be completely disconnected for critical listening. He went
upstairs to throw the switch, and indeed the sound quality was even better
after that. A bit more organic, with slightly better depth. Not an
enormous difference, but Kevin told us that just having the batteries in
the circuit, even while connected to the mains, already improves the sound
as they have a stabilising effect. Disconnecting the system adds the last
bit of refinement. Again, this mains system is mostly meant for use on
yachts, where mains quality can be a problem, or in places with really bad
mains.

But back to the system. For me, this was one of those experiences that
redefines what is possible in audio. All of us have ideas about where
the limitations of audio systems roughly are, but mine were adjusted
by quite a bit after having been exposed to this wonderful system. We
did have a few comments about the deepest bass, which seemed to be
less controlled. But Kevin immediately made some changes, replacing an
active crossover and bass amp for the subwoofers with a passive
filter. This solved the problem, even though we still weren't in
sealed enclosure/muscle amp territory. We then had some minor
comments about the rhythmic abilities of the system and even this was
immediately solved by swapping the CEC transport / Kondo DAC
combination for a Resolution Audio Opus 21 player. This could be seen
as a strange move, as the Opus 21 is only a fraction of the price of
the CEC/Kondo combination, but it worked very well nevertheless. Now
everything just clicked into place and the sound was perfect, as far
as I was concerned. I could have listened to that system forever. But
we had only limited time and also wanted to hear the other setup.

We took the excellent Opus 21 CD player with us to the next room to
have a listen to the Living Voice Avatar OBX RW speakers. Again, the
amplification was all Kondo, this time a pair of push-pull amps. This
system lacked the high level capabilities of the Vox Olympians, but
sounded very satisfying nevertheless. Is was more like the sound we
are used to at home, especially for my friend with the Living Voice
speakers, obviously. This system lacked the scale and power of the big
system, but was excellent in its own right. Bass was even a bit deeper
and tighter than next door. For the rest the sound was simply a bit
softer and smaller. There was still that unforced dynamic range of the
Kondo amps, and that natural, lively, organic sound that Kevin seems
to specialise in. A few cables were swapped, and a more fancy
crossover was installed, but even if this did improve the sound, the
overall character remained the same. Kevin calls it comfortable, and
it indeed is a system you can listen to for as long as you like
without ever getting tired or wanting to turn on the telly. And, even
more important, it also leaves you wanting to listen to more and more
music and explore your record collection over and over again, without
forcing you in any direction. Obviously systems like these, especially
the Vox Olympians, will thrive on audiophile recordings. But real
musicality in a system will also work with lesser recordings, and with
all styles of music.

Obviously, it isn't all glamour and luxury at Definitive Audio. It might
look like heaven to you an me, but it is just another business at the end
of the day. Still, even the stores and the workshop had a certain magic for
us, because even there the high-end audio is stacked on top of each other
everywhere. You can assemble a pretty good system from every single room in
this building! Most people would be proud to have components in their system
that are just sitting somewhere on a shelf here. I can recommend a look at
the Definitive Audio website, especially the 'definitive stuff list' where
you can find many a high-end bargain. Most of it is part exchange and all of
it will come with enthousiastic expert advice from Kevin.

If you want to experience hifi in its best possible form, or are
interested in getting a real high-end system, you simply must visit
Definitive Audio. It might be a life changing experience. I guarantee
you will be impressed.